From Olympian to Tory MSP via a gagging order from Bill Clinton
OLYMPIAN turned MSP Brian Whittle feigns being out of breath and on the verge of collapse after climbing two flights of stairs to his office at Holyrood as if he had just breasted the tape in a pulsating 400 metre race in his sporting heyday.
The European Athletics Championship gold medalist makes the humorous gesture ahead of speaking to the Sunday Herald about his eventful journey from competing in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul to sitting on the Tory benches of the Scottish Parliament.
“I have been called the poor man’s Scottish Seb Coe,” Whittle jokes again in a reference to the legendary Olympic middle-distance world record holder who served as a Tory MP in the 1990s before going on to lead the UK’s 2012 Olympic organising committee and serve in the House of Lords.
Whittle, who once defeated fellow track athlete Coe when he finished fourth ahead of him in the 1990 Commonwealth Games 800 metres final in New Zealand, clearly views one of the UK’s greatest Olympians as somewhat of a mentor.
Whittle is probably best remembered for the manner in which he helped Great Britain win the Gold medal in the 4 x 400 metres relay at the 1986 European Championships in Stuttgart, when he ran the third leg of the race with one shoe.
Now he talks about still being seen by many as an athlete rather than a politician. He continues. “What you’ve got to remember is that was a long time ago. I’ve done other things since,” Whittle says of his life after track athletics.
It is a career that included the collapse of a company after a plan to bring Bill Clinton to Scotland fell through at the last moment.
Clinton reportedly pulled out of the event in Aberdeen when he was not paid a fee upfront, leaving Whittle and his business partner, the ex-Scotland rugby star Derek Stark, facing huge financial losses.
“The Clintons’ agent put a gagging order on us and I was in a contract that it would have cost me far too much money to get out of so I just had to take the pain,” he says.
Whittle said he was not yet ready to state the reasons for the order even though he claimed it no longer applied.
He also declined to discuss any details of those involved. However, he said it was related to the behaviour of one of Clinton’s representatives rather than the former US president himself.
When asked why it was imposed, Whittle said: “Because it’s Clinton. It’s President Clinton and by the way the people who came out of that story the worst are his agent and the banks.”
What’s striking about Whittle is how “un-Tory” he seems and how laid back he is compared to his more buttoned-up Westminster colleagues such as Theresa May.
Whittle says his past has opened doors for him in his role as Ruth Davidson’s spokesperson for health, education, lifestyle and sport.
How much of a problem is it for him to be seen out campaigning for a Tory Party that remains toxic in the eyes of many Scots?
For one thing, he enjoys the banter. It’s illustrated when he cracks a joke about canvassing for the Tories in the local council elections last week.
“I was in an area where people live the most challenging lives and I was there with a jacket that says Scottish Conservative on the back.
“There was a big dog at a house I canvassed and the owner said ‘I’ll have to shoot the dog now that it’s talked to a Tory’.”
What also marks him out is how direct he is when asked questions that could potentially land him in hot water, such as how he has found life in the Scottish Parliament.
“When I first came in here the absolute brutal honest truth is I thought it was penance for sin in a last life,” he says, adding the caveat: “I would say for the majority of time, until recently, I’ve enjoyed it more than I thought I would.”
The last two or three months have been less enjoyable, he says, explain- ing: “It’s the constitution. It’s not what I’m here for. I’m not here to play political games. I’d be the first to admit it’s not what I’m good at.”
Expressing the frustration, and taking a sideswipe at the SNP, he says: “What that means is that all the time I’ve been here there’s only one bit of policy passed and that was the budget and that can’t be right.”
Whittle, always a Tory voter, came into politics after coming into contact with Ruth Davidson during the 2014 anti-independence campaign.
“I’m absolutely opposed to Scottish independence. Think of my background, a Great Britain athlete,” he says.
“We can talk about benefits of being in the UK – and I’d really like us to talk about the benefits – but in terms of is it central to what I do? Absolutely not. ”
Whittle insists it’s his health education spokesman role that keeps him going, with the championing of issues like access to PE in schools, that he claims Scotland has struggled with for decades.
“If we look at the rise in obesity and rise in mental health issues, you can trace it back to the mid-1980s that’s the point when PE in schools was cut,” says Whittle.
Again, in a remark not usually associated with Tories, Whittle adds: “Sport’s become this bastion of middle class and private schools.”
But how would Whittle feel if the Team GB he was part of ceased to exist in its current form after the creation of an independent Scotland? He says pointedly that more medals are won by athletes playing as part of Team GB than as individuals – the implication being that Scotland might not feel so medal rich post-independence.
He also suggests an independent Scotland would fail to qualify for some Olympic events, stating: “Let’s put it this way, the numbers are stacked against them. Sport in this country would sink massively.”
With such doom-laden views of independence, it sounds like Whittle will be snapped up as the ideal poster boy by the No side in the event of a second referendum being called, an idea he pooh-poohs.
But for Whittle, who epitomises the notion of an accidental politician, having learned about his election as a list MSP in 2016 while in his bed, it may be that whatever his protestations he finds himself back in the thick of the action if a second referendum is called.